The first issue of the Products of a Gaseous Brain zine is available now!

You can buy the STRICTLY LIMITED EDITION luxury B&W printed version, which has already been described on Twitter as “mindblowing” and “a snazzy catalogue”, for the bargain price of £2 at Elvis Shakespeare, Deadhead Comics & Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, and at Monorail Music in Glasgow. Or you can buy it directly from this website using the handy buttons below. The prices are slightly higher than in the shops due to postage, especially for outside the UK, so I’ve made the pdf version available to download for £1 sterling (I think given the work that’s gone into the zine this is a reasonable amount to charge).

Download zip file containing full colour PDF version:

£1 

Buy B&W print version (for UK delivery):

 £3 

Buy B&W print version (for International Delivery):

£5 

These prices are as low as I can possibly go to cover the costs of printing and postage etc. Note also that there will only be 50 printed versions available of the zine and that includes the ones that are already in the shops.

p.s. please spread the word!

image via This Isn’t Happiness

I’m at danger of adding to the internet echo chamber here but in case you don’t know, Seth Godin is a bestselling author and highly respected blogger who writes about marketing and business, and this week he launched a new free e-book called ‘What Matters Now’. It features 70 thought-provoking “mini-essays” by some of the most interesting writers around and he’s made it freely available which means you can download it directly from here or head to his blog.

 I think the piece that hit home the hardest for me was Consequence by Saul Griffith, which is about the environmental impact of all of our actions – but all of them are worth reading. For a full list of the topics and authors included see Life Beyond Code, which also has an interesting A-Z of New Year Resolutions.

 If you’re interested in getting hold of any of Seth Godin’s other free e-books (there are quite a few) a blog called shuaism has created a handy list of them all.  

 I must be in a fairly reflective mood as a couple of pieces I read this week on mindfulness really caught my interest. Nate over at Fearless Endeavours (ok it’s spelt the American way but I just had to change it to the English spelling!) has a thoughtful piece asking ‘are you sleepwalking through life?’. It’s a lovely piece of writing which a lot of people will relate to, especially if you’ve ever spent any time in London or New York – and I love this related cartoon which one of the commenters linked to:

Image courtesy of xkcd

As a way of working on this tendency towards autopilot, Lateral Action’s post called Why Thinking is Overrated suggests an interesting Zen meditation in which you imagine you have no head (via @TimBrownson & @markmcguinness on Twitter) and Leo at Zen Habits suggests eating a piece of fruit. Amazing how different a banana tastes when you take time to notice how it actually tastes. Seriously, try it.

Okay now I admit that I’m becoming what the Japanese apparently describe as majime, or too serious (check out Why it’s time to lighten up about weird Japan at Boing Boing) so here’s your weekly dose of eye candy. Anyone who prefers ogling at men will have to submit their suggestions for next week if you want some equality)

See more, much more at Tumblr

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A day late, as I had an interview yesterday amongst other things. Anyway, here’s some stuff. 

100 Days Projects by People I Know

The Pictish Trail has overcome the tonsil troubles which threatened to derail his project to record a song a day – and he’s recorded some interesting stuff including a wicked little rap called ‘My Fizzy Bitz’

For some excellent photos documenting “things left behind on the street” as part of the 100 days project, check out My Bit of Sky

Fabian of The Friendly Anarchist is doing 100 Days of ‘skribbles‘ as inspired by 75 Ways to Draw More by Michael Nobbs. Fabian is also an accomplished photographer – I highly recommend his gallery: The Vacations You Always Wanted

Are you doing 100 Days? Let me know what you’re up to!

 Music Video of the Week: North Atlantic Oscillation – Cell Count

 Eye Candy of the Week

More on gaseousbrain.tumblr.com

Google Reader Shared Items 

• 10 Overhyped Bands of the 2000s – Lizzyville from lizzyville.blogs.com 
• I Measure My Self-Esteem By My RSS Subscriptions! from Feeding The Black Dog
• Derek Sivers is publishing some great stuff from Signal vs. Noise
• iTunes 2009 Best Sellers from hypebot
• Facebook moving away from ‘Friend-adding’ focus from The Next Web
• The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With…from TechCrunch
• The New Lazyfeed Adds Real-time Updates to Your News… from WebWorkerDaily
• Google joins forces with newspapers from Media news, UK and world media comment and analy
• BBC: drinking coffee ‘will not sober you up’ when… from A shot of JD
  “Dammit.”
• The Pernicious Influence of Hype from Broon’s Tunes (and other stories)
• How I edit photos from How To Matter
• Artist’s Consistency versus Kicking Ass: On Avoiding…from The Friendly Anarchist
• Fearless Doing: Mindfulness Practice from Fearless Endeavors

 Subscribe to Products of a Gaseous Brain via RSS

 Subscribe to Products of a Gaseous Brain by Email

Random Picture of the Week via this isn’t happiness (click image to visit)

So it’s business as usual with some rock solid link action for y’all. If you’ve read something else essential this week let me know in the comments.

Live in Edinburgh This Week – 29th November 2009
songbytoad.com

Twitter Declared Most Popular English Word of 2009
mashable.com

Desert Island Discs With Morrissey 
guardian.co.uk

Friday Freebies Fence special
peenko.blogspot.com

heavy like sunday: last month’s mix, november 2009;
lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net

eagleowl: No time to hibernate
www2.jpscotland.co.uk

A Modern Mixtape: Notes on Compiling The Bowery Bundle For Ten Tracks | The Skinny
theskinny.co.uk

Oliver Postgate: Ivor, Bagpuss and me
guardian.co.uk

Public Image Ltd: John the Revelator
truckstop83.blogspot.com

Filesharers are parasitic freeloaders | Anne Wollenberg
guardian.co.uk

Oxfam Charity Baw Photographic evidence
bluebackhotrod.com

Filesharing petition rises up rankings
guardian.co.uk

Thirsty
sethgodin.typepad.com

Newsflash: Your chance to record King Creosote
www2.jpscotland.co.uk

Reality TV turns reality check for Jordan
guardian.co.uk

Tweet of The Week

 That’s your lot. I’m off to get my shit together.

Above: random pic of the week, via WhiskeyandGoat’sMilk

So those who are in Scotland know about next year’s Fence Homegame right? Tickets go on sale at www.fencerecords.com on 1st December and it’s in March 2010. Oh, and last year’s was amazing.

And now, let the randomness begin! Have played around with a few new categories this week, let me know what you think..

Tweet of the Week – Sunday Surfing via @AloysiusMunn

Google Reader articles of the week

One month of Twitter hell
guardian.co.uk

Physical & Digital, Together at Last!
blog.bandcamp.com (great commerce site for musicians)

Should The App Store Review Process Be Scrapped?
justanotheriphoneblog.com

How Murdoch Can Really Hurt Google And Shift The Balance Of Power In Search
techcrunch.com

King Creosote – Vic Galloway Session (18/05/09)
peenko.blogspot.com

Which Science Fiction Show Do You Feel Guilty For Not Keeping Up With? [Poll]
io9.com

3 Ways To Meet (And Get Nasty With) Your Opposite-Sex Duplicate [Triviagasm]
io9.com (best blog post headline ever?)

Willie Nelson beats Snoop Dogg at smoking pot
feeds.boingboing.net

7 Apps We’re Falling in Love With
readwriteweb.com

Like Karaoke? You’ll Go (Lady) Gaga Over iOKi’s iPhone App
techcrunch.com

iPhone gets live Sky Mobile TV, O2 offering 3 months’ free access
engadget.com

Ten best money-saving iPhone apps
guardian.co.uk

Loud sex a human right, says loud sex woman
go.theregister.com

Howl’s Moving Castle made out of Lego
feeds.boingboing.net

Tumblr Eye Candy of the week – Bunny (unknown source)

More eye candy and weird shit on my Tumblr

Music Video of the Week – Grizzly Bear – Ready & Able (via Minor Jive)

Runner up: Bob Dylan’s utterly bizarre ‘Must Be Santa’ video. Nuts! (via @lastyearsgirl_)

What Is Escapism? How Does It Cost Me?

thesimpledollar.com

CLICK, SNAP, BOOSH… Olya Ivanisevic
myportiswaspsays.com

Gig review: Daniel Johnston
17seconds.co.uk

Daniel Johnston – Live at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Wednesday 4th November 2009
songbytoad.com

Why You’ll Never Be Finished (And How to Figure Out When You’ve Done Enough)
aliventures.com

NUDE IT: Augmented Reality Gets Naked on the iPhone [VIDEO]
mashable.com (pretty funny spoof video)

Fall of the Berlin wall in digital media
guardian.co.uk

True Blood: A tale of glamour, sex and vampires
guardian.co.uk

33 1/3 Part 21
17seconds.co.uk (great piece on Bowie’s Low)

in praise of: my gal pals;
lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net (making friends online is cool!)

365 Days of Stormtrooper Photography
weburbanist.com (as pictured)

Cats with fraudulent diplomas
boingboing.net (daft)

On Figuring Out Who You Are (and What Would Plato Do?)
friendlyanarchist.com

Succeedblog: awesome stuff captioned with SUCCEED
feeds.boingboing.net

Shifting the balance of power. (Mainstream media stinks.)
blog.penelopetrunk.com (casually tweeting about having a miscarriage tends to create a shitstorm)

The Geek’s Guide to Being Interesting
jonathanfields.com

Don’t Blog Whilst Under The Influence Of Alcohol
thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com

Wow, Google Really Likes Muppets!
mashable.com

Folk covers of punk classics
boingboing.net

The Media Blog: What’s the value of a journalist that Twitters?
rss.feedsportal.com

In pictures: Oxjam Edinburgh
www2.jpscotland.co.uk

Advisor: My husband has a virtual girlfriend
feeds.boingboing.net

And direct from Twitter:

RT @stgramophone: Taken By Trees, a plea to readers, and one of my favourite new discoveries from Montrealhttp://bit.ly/1lCNUz

RT @pitchforkmedia: Kraftwerk Interview – we talk to Ralf Hutter http://bit.ly/4keap1

RT @under_the_radar: Ambulances are our featured band today. Interview and music: http://bit.ly/6omJZ(@Ambulances)

RT @Headphaze: “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Why the mainstream media is dying” ( http://bit.ly/1qBTz7 )

RT @lastyearsgirl_: NYT asks nine poets to write new works inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall http://bit.ly/JURBU

RT @jonathanfields: A voyeuristic look into writers’ “cribs”; great photography… http://is.gd/4Q75b (via @Lynn_H)

RT: New @FridayMixtape is up! Have a listen here:http://FridayMixtape.com

RT @chrisguillebeau: New “Fear of Flying” app for iphonehttp://tinyurl.com/yl4m4p7

If that isn’t enough for you, see reading lists from previous weeks

 

Get free updates by RSS or email

 

It’s November. Howdahelldiddathappen?

I’ve been unwell and off work for several days which means I’m missing the Gothenburg Address play at the Electric Circus tonight. Whatdahelliswrongwidme?

I’ve managed to weakly click on the share button for a couple of things though, go see over at my google reader shared items or below if you are visiting the site. They include Shakira being amazing in the bedroom via Portiswasp, the above robot being grumpy and mildly annoying like me, fruit bat fellatio (I kid you not) and Just Another iPhone Blog, who I write for from time to time being featured on Lifehacker.

Shameless self-promotion: Here’s my latest post for them: Newsy.com brings bite-size nuggets of news to the iPhone

Surprise: David Lynch’s Sandworms Were “Too Phallic” [Dune]
io9.com

Fuller: content is king in digital age
guardian.co.uk

Twitter for TV lovers: who to follow
guardian.co.uk

ROPID the adorable humanoid can jump 3-inches into the air, sweep you off your feet
engadget.com

NSFW Science: Fruit Bat Fellatio
feeds.boingboing.net

Cool Video: Apple’s Design Guru on Design Principles, iPhones, Macs, More
justanotheriphoneblog.com

Now There Really Is an iPhone App for Everything
justanotheriphoneblog.com

NSFW: Halloween in San Francisco and the gathering clouds of a location-based privacy storm
techcrunch.com

Is World Journalism in Crisis? The podcasts
rss.feedsportal.com

DOOM now available in the App Store!
thenextweb.com

POLL: Illegal Downloaders Buy the Most Music
mashable.com

Brush Your iPhone’s Bezel to Hide Scuffs and Scratches [IPhone]
feeds.gawker.com
Nice to see the Just Another iPhone Blog get featured on Lifehacker!

SHAKIRA – DID IT AGAIN
myportiswaspsays.com
Shakira being amazing in the bedroom. And just amazing in general, as usual.

Guilty Pleasures
thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com

Above picture by James Christopher via my Tumblr 

So, as promised, more random links. Was very chuffed this week to get a mention in this splendid article by Glasgow Podcart which also bigs up a bunch other blogs I enjoy, many of which I’ve mentioned here at some point. I think each of the blogs mentioned bring their own unique style and content to the table, and Halina who wrote the piece is a very passionate and generous soul who has been very supportive of me even when I’ve gone off on incredibly geeky and obscure tangents, so cheers Halina!

Random Links From Google Reader

Monday 25th October marks ‘least productive’ day of year
go.theregister.com

Geocities closes tomorrow. Last chance to save your rubbish old website
thenextweb.com

My Latest Novel, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh – 24th October 2009
thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com

How To Get Past The Blank Page By Creating Urgency
problogger.net
Blogging for masochists

Ever wonder how much electricity it takes to run the Internet?
thenextweb.com

Spike Jonze Explains Why Kanye Pulled ‘Fairytale’ Video
therapup.uproxx.com

Historian slams ‘absolutely crazy’ UK time zone
go.theregister.com

How The iPhone Is Blowing Everyone Else Away (In Charts)
techcrunch.com

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days
writetodone.com

AppsFire Launches App Star Awards To Find The Next Great iPhone App
techcrunch.com

An Interview with Dan Pink
lateralaction.com

Random Links Direct From Twitter

This is all that remains of my first ever webshite, for my band Swivel Chair: index http://bit.ly/2Hu6bh #geocitiesgraveyard

RT @seaninsound: RIP John Peel who passed away 5years ago today. Here are a bunch of Peel playlists @spotify http://bit.ly/3d5QjU

Quality remix of Yeah Yeah Yeahs Heads Will Roll via @FridayMixtape http://bit.ly/3uMnr7

RT @mybitofsky: RT @eagleowlattack EP now sold out – the digital download version is now available from http://eagleowl.bandcamp.com/

RT @jonathanfields: RT @CaliLewis: Did you guys see this about the 27″ iMac? http://bit.ly/4kskFv

Some links you may find interesting/useful/amusing from the last couple of weeks. From now on I’ll be posting a weekly reading list every Tuesday. 

You’ll be familiar with some of these if you follow my Twitter feed or Google Reader shared items as they’re taken from a combination of stuff I’ve posted on both sites. 

Ps if you haven’t tried Canabalt yet (pictured above) get over there and have a go – it’s free to play online and the music is INCREDIBLE (turn it up loud). Oh, and the best version I could find of the Spike Jonze directed Kanye West short film “We Were Once a Fairytale” is embedded below too as the original posting on YouTube was removed. It’s pretty damn bizarre.

Shared from Google Reader

Apple Bores Me, But We Fixed Our Mouse
thenextweb.com

Droid, the phone that finally lets me cancel my iPhone – here’s why
digital.venturebeat.com

Debut: Spike Jonze’s Short Film With Kanye West, ‘We Were Once A Fairytale’
theplaylist.blogspot.com

Peenko vs Ambulances
peenko.blogspot.com

Jon Snow: ‘Being a good journalist takes your whole life’
rss.feedsportal.com

iPhone saves woman from bear
go.theregister.com

Blog Action Day: Will Climate Change Impact You?
entrepreneurs-journey.com

New App Tries to Fill the Need for a “Dislike” Button on Facebook
mashable.com

Sufjan Stevens: ‘What is the point of a song?’
guardian.co.uk

How to run, meditate, and not get hurt
boingboing.net

Peenko Blog Is One Year Old Today
peenko.blogspot.com

Read 2008′s Greatest Unproduced Screenplays For Free [Weekend Reading]

io9.com

Review: It’s Not What You Think

guardian.co.uk

Interesting Guardian review of the first volume of Chris Evans’ autobiography #fb

Ping: Free iPhone-to-iPhone Text Messaging

mashable.com

Spotify says it needs more time to make money
guardian.co.uk

Last night’s TV
guardian.co.uk

How can we make paid content work?
guardian.co.uk

The Aliens: “Sunlamp Show” music video
boingboing.net

Doctor: Internet Addiction Could Become a Chronic Childhood Disease
mashable.com

Like iPhone games? Check out Canabalt. Just do it.
justanotheriphoneblog.com

Direct from Twitter

RT @cybraphon: I am feeling: BAFTA nominated.http://bit.ly/2MyGZz Just found out, very cool indeed

RT @emilychang: tweetie 2 tip: Always mid-stream? tap the top of your phone (where the time is) to jump to the top. (apparently this works for all apps – thanks @nonimage)

RT: @JustiPhoneBlog: What Does Your Home Screen Say About You? http://bit.ly/1WzMwn (my 2nd guest post for them!)

RT @1stand20: In-App Sales and iTablet: The Killer Combo to Save Publishing? http://bit.ly/3vxDMi Makes sense.